1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a waveform generating apparatus having a tone generator which generates waveform data in a plurality of sound generation channels based on settings made in the respective sound generation channels. In particular, the invention relates to a waveform generating apparatus capable of communicating with an external information processing apparatus capable of providing a tone generation function.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various apparatuses such as synthesizers and electronic musical instruments have been conventionally known as waveform generating apparatuses having a tone generator. Further, there has been a method for realizing a function of a tone generator by software. In this method, a computer such as a PC (personal computer) executes a desired program such as DAW (digital audio workstation) application.
In these waveform generating apparatuses, when hardware mounted in the apparatus does not have a sufficient capability, a tone generator board or an effector board is mounted as a plug-in board, thereby enabling function addition.
Further, there has been known DAW application which distributes processing to a plurality of network-connected PCs to make the PCs execute their shares of the processing, thereby realizing load sharing and enabling the execution of high-load processing.
Examples of such DAW application include those described in the following Documents 1, 2.
Document 1: “Logic Pro Distributed Audio”, [online], 2007, Apple Inc., [retrieved on Jul. 13, 2007], Retrieved from the Internet <URL: http://www.apple.com/logicpro/distributedaudio.html>
Document 2: “Cubase SL Features”, [online], 2005, Steinberg Canada, [retrieved on Jul. 13, 2007], Retrieved from the Internet <URL: http://www.steinbergcanada.com/products/cubase/cubasesl_features_systemli nk.htm>